Saturday, March 25, 2017

Not all things on Alibaba (or Jack Ma) is great

When Jack Ma said that he is not taking salary being an advisor on Malaysian digital economy aspiration - he does not need to. How much that position pays anyway? There is a word of caution on getting too close and give up too much to these people.

When a person is rich, he is always a hero. That's a reality. Heroes are made from the winners, not losers.

In turning Malaysia as a digital free trade zone hub is great, but too much given to Jack Ma is potentially not good.

I would like to point to the event from these articles where one can read from here, here, here. You can also find out the event, by googling "Jack Ma Yahoo Alipay".

That event literally, puts into contention that Jack Ma transferred the entire Alipay into his own holding - and both its largest shareholders being Yahoo and Softbank claimed that they did not know about it. In the western world, there would be lawsuits, but in China it is different. Note that Alipay is worth in excess of USD50 billion today. That's a big loss to Yahoo.

Shall I say, in that event, there is this "40 thieves" element in Alibaba. If he did not do wrong, why would he gave up some portion of return to Yahoo in the event of IPO - only later when Yahoo complained?

One should note that there is NO WAY these kind of things can be churned out in most parts of the world except China. When your investors are Yahoo and Softbank, there is no way I can even dare to dream of doing this, but he did it.

Jack Ma is a businessman and a Chinese (from China) man. There is this saying, "The only thing straight about a China man is the hair."

This is the kind of person where our Malaysian government is dealing with. He is a businessman and again a China man. Of course, you welcome him, he will come - he already has business intentions here by virtue of buying stake in Lazada. He has nothing to lose but much to gain.

Airasia, DKSH and Tropicana are linked to my article. I hope that the writer from Star can distinguish a joke and a serious opinion. While Airasia could benefit a little, obviously, DKSH and Tropicana have nothing to do with the DFTZ! The only thing that can be positive from there is that if Malaysian economy is doing well, these companies will do well - but there is no obvious linkage.

Note:
If one is to read the Jack Ma's story, it is a highly inspirational story - from a real underdog and truly a rags to riches.
I am also all for a DFTZ concept as in my other articles.

Yes, many. China is not going to allow any foreign companies to be big in the country. Several others are such as Google, Uber recently. This is getting into the era of protectionism. I am not surprised of the Trump's policy as China gets hungry over technologies, assets.

Disclaimer

The content here should serve as the opinion of the writer rather than as an advice to buy or sell. You should do your own research and/or seek expert's advice when doing your investments. Any decision that you made is your own and the author should not be held accountable.